Meet 10 People Who Say They've Been Abducted By Aliens

"I had a hole in the back of my head that under black light glowed with a triangle around it." -LisaSteven Hirsch According to a recent HuffPo/YouGov poll, 48% of Americans believe it's possible that UFOs have visited and observed our planet. Only 35% of those polled totally spurned such an idea.

Additionally, 10% of the U.S. population say they have seen an alien space craft with their own eyes. And while the number of people who claim to have been taken by aliens is much lower, they do exist, and more come forward every year.

Who are these all these people? Where do they come from? What are their stories?

Over the past few years, photographer Steven Hirsc h has attempted to find out just that. His series, titled "Little Sticky Legs" (named after one of his subjects descriptions of an alien), is a series of portraits of purported alien abductees, along with anecdotes and drawings from the subjects.

Hirsch initially started photographing his subjects after covering a convention of self-proclaimed abductees in Connecticut. "The experience was mind-boggling and stuck with me for decades," he told Business Insider.

He traveled the Southwest, where many people claiming to be alien abductees live, to continue the project. Hirsch says southwestern landscapes affect the way people think. "It's trippy out there. In New York, you have no sense of the universe, but in the Southwest you can't avoid the sky; you get a sense of scale of and intimacy with the universe," he says.

Hirsch continues the project today, going out to the Southwest every year. You can see more portraits, as well as drawings and anecdotes on his site.

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"I've got to meet numerous types of beings. I've met Salamander beings and I've met Greys, various different types of Greys. I've also met the Blue Arcturians which are incredible. They all have their own personalities and their own purposes... I've never yet ever met a being that was malevolent. I've never experienced unconditional love 'til I've met them face to face and had conscious contact with them." -Cynthia

"On November 5, 1975, me and six other men were leaving work in a remote forest and we encountered an unidentified flying object and I was taken aboard. My co-workers were accused of murdering me and making up a story to cover up for why I was missing. The state police gave them a lie detector test, and even though they passed, ever since then it's been one sort of attempt to explain it away anyway they could. If you're going to pass judgement on it, get the facts first." -Travis

"I'm telling them, 'I want to stay, I don't want to go.' I start crying. I say, 'I like it here. I belong.' And they said, "No, it's not your time. You have to help save this planet Earth." That's all I remember." -Stephen

"They stopped coming four years ago. I'm disappointed. I liked them coming. I was hoping to learn something. But they never talked to me or anything except to give me a message if I asked something. And the message was basically, 'Shut up.'" -Terrance

"They didn't probe me, they didn't do nothing. They just opened up my eyes. It was kinda crazy because, before that, I asked for something like that to happen, just for proof and I just got it, you know? It was there. It happened." -Sabastian

"They had been teaching me things that I was supposed to bring through and teach to others here on Earth and I hadn't been doing a very good job of it... They were telling me things about cleaning up the environment, being nicer to each other, and having more brotherly love. And also the big thing that was important to them was getting rid of nuclear power plants." -Viviane

" I was been sent back in time to do the work. I’ve done the work. The job is done. The Mayan calendars happened. Our auras have gone to the third dimension. That’s my most important life." -James

"I see a silhouetted being standing at the side of my bed… [then] I get zapped with a blue beam, say about an inch in diameter. Went right into my solar plexus area. I said to him out loud, 'Can you show me the ship?' and with that, he just disappeared. He just kind of vaporized in front of me." -John

"All my life I've had visions which I could never control. I was originally abducted when I was sixteen years old. I was lifted up in the air. There was no gravity… I could see these tall Grey aliens on my right hand side talking to each other... It was more of a gargling sound. It was very hard to describe." -Sebastien

"I looked off in the distance and I saw a light over the mountains. It clearly looked like a UFO to me. So I said out loud, 'If you're coming for me, you outta get your asses over here and get it over with.' And as soon as I said that, this thing leaped at supersonic speeds. It went zoom and just stopped right over my head. It was huge." -Bruce